'My brother is no street rat' says youth in burning car case

One of the youths accused of tormenting a mother and her disabled daughter in the years before they died in a burning car, defended his brother today after he was branded a "street rat".

Ross Simmons said it was disgusting his 16-year-old brother Alex was singled out following the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca Hardwick.

Following the inquest, the youngsters were named with their parents Steven Simmons, 43, and his 44-year-old wife Susanne, as being partly responsible for the ordeal of Ms Pilkington, her daughter and son Anthony, now 19.

The couple have two other sons, aged 15 and 12.

Speaking at the family's home, Ross Simmons defended his brother, who was labelled a "street rat" by neighbours.

The 20-year-old said: "It's disgusting them calling my brother a street rat. He is not a rat."

Speaking from a bedroom window at the family's run-down house, he then ducked back inside the house.

Yesterday a jury sitting at Loughborough Town Hall found the 38-year-old single mother took her daughter's life and committed suicide after years of abuse on Bardon Road in the Leicestershire village of Barwell.

In a damning verdict it found the failure of police to deal effectively with the antisocial behaviour that blighted their lives contributed to Ms Pilkington's decision to set light to the family's car while she sat in the driver's seat alongside her 18-year-old daughter.

Earlier Ross Simmons said his family had received threatening phone calls, in which the family were told to leave Barwell.

He told reporters: "People are threatening to kill my uncle and me. We don't know who they are, they just rung up and threatened us.

"This is terrible, my brothers are innocent. This is harassment."

During the inquest, the jury was told Ms Pilkington wrote twice to David Tredinnick, her local MP and the Tory Member for Hinckley and Bosworth.

In her second letter, written in February 2007, the full-time carer wrote: "I don't really know how to handle things anymore. How can I protect my teenagers from this sort of abuse? No one can help.

"I have had 11 years of misery. My hair is falling out. What do you do? Do you just let them take control of this lovely street? The kids on the street stop everyone living their lives."

Today, Mr Tredinnick described the deaths as a "huge tragedy".

He said: "It is very sad that it has taken something of this magnitude to bring these issues to the fore. The police have got to look at how they prioritise offences."

He added: "On a broader level, there has been a complete failure of Government policies.

"What went on in Barwell, and what happens in other locations across the country, is that you have a tiny number of people, often youths and young men, holding communities to ransom.

"There is something patently absurd when we have an integrated community like Barwell being held to ransom by half a dozen people."

Odd job man Steven Simmons returned to his house today and remained unrepentant.

He said: "I have nothing to say, now get off my driveway or I will call police. It's council property."